Instead of converting the 10-story, 357-room hotel at 899 N. Stemmons Freeway into a data center or retaining it as a possible county detention center, Dallas-based Circa Capital Corp. has put the mid-century modern hotel under contract and begun its due diligence to convert it back into a hotel.

"We have it under contract and we are doing our due diligence," Fred Aldridge III, president and CEO of Circa Capital, told the Dallas Business Journal."We are enthusiastic about where we are."

Aldridge would not detail out the real estate firm's plans for the hotel, which was originally built in the early 1960s. But his team has begun talking to a number of different hotel flags about the potential of converting the property back into a hotel.

And, he said, the firm could always convert into a boutique hotel without a typical hotel flag. If all goes well, Aldridge said the firm could buy the building by the end of the year.

Wow.. so the original plans for both this and the Kroger have both changed into something significantly better and more urban. Great sign for the city, now we just need the Sam's Club at Cityplace to be gone.

Late Friday the Dallas County Commissioners Court agreed to sell the 399,000-square-foot property, which sits on 3.275 acres near the Design District, to Centurion American Acquisition, LLC. The sale price, according to county records, is $8.1 million...

Mehrdad Moayedi, Centurion American's chief executive, said in a statement sent to The News on Friday he intends to preserve the old Cabana, which was built in 1962 by a development team that included Jay Sarno, who also developed Caesar's Palace and Circus Circus in Las Vegas, and partially owned by Doris Day.

citygeek wrote:You won't recognize the Design District in 5 years. 3 new hotels, at least one office building, and several additional 20-30 story apartment towers on the way.

Is there a plan for pedestrian updates. That entire area is disconnected and missing sidewalks everywhere.

DD has/had a great opportunity to repurpose all the rail road ROW that used to be used for deliveries between the buildings and turn them into pedestrian corridors (at least some of them anyway). Instead, they appear to be getting slowly gobbled up by parking lots and such. That's a bit of a shame, IMO. Many areas would love to have those types of corridors available for pedestrian connectivity.

What they need is a "large" corporate tenant who wants a walkable campus to come in gobble up the galleries and the railway right of way and build out that pedestrian passageway to Victory Park under Stemmons to the DART station...

cowboyeagle05 wrote:What they need is a "large" corporate tenant who wants a walkable campus to come in gobble up the galleries and the railway right of way and build out that pedestrian passageway to Victory Park under Stemmons to the DART station...

Corporate could do it or Dallas could balls up and pass some zoning with an urban vision for the area

PD 621 is established on property generally bounded by Sylvan Avenue/Wycliff Avenue on thenorthwest, the meanders of the old channel of the Trinity River on the north, Interstate 35 on the east,Continental Avenue on the south, and the Trinity River Floodway on the west. The size of PD 621 isapproximately 415.13 acres. (Ord. Nos. 25013; 25560; 27006)

This special purpose district is to be known as the Old Trinity and Design DistrictSpecial Purpose District.

PD 621 is established on property generally bounded by Sylvan Avenue/Wycliff Avenue on thenorthwest, the meanders of the old channel of the Trinity River on the north, Interstate 35 on the east,Continental Avenue on the south, and the Trinity River Floodway on the west. The size of PD 621 isapproximately 415.13 acres. (Ord. Nos. 25013; 25560; 27006)

This special purpose district is to be known as the Old Trinity and Design DistrictSpecial Purpose District.

The city has the zoning in place? As someone who reads a lot of zoning code, the city of Dallas has some of the most convoluted, confusing and non-organized code you can find. Add into that the city does not have an external tracking system and you end up with a very difficult process to get anything done.

This is going to be one of those wait and see projects. They already have their hands full with finishing the Statler which is not near complete in its entirety with the parking garage mixed-use thing they have to build to keep the Dallas Morning News happy. Plus the Old Library isn't close to being ready for the DMN to move in yet.

They have made moves on South Dallas for a very large mixed-use project announced a month ago. They seem like a company that wants to be a Trammel Crow of sorts but balancing a few projects at a time takes a lot of competent professionals that some development companies never seem to hire.

Add on to that the tax financial scandal which can kill some potential partnerships that are needed to pull off a large mixed-use development in South Dallas.

"The hotel is going to stay a hotel," Moayedi said. "We are going to give a big emphasis on a pool."It's going to be like a Las Vegas pool."Moayedi said plan is to market the property to millennials who want a one-of-a-kind plans to stay, hang out and party."There sill be a lot of events," he said. "There will be a big nightclub in there and a couple of restaurants."

tamtagon wrote:How about a Dallas-Style hotel with pool, night life, dining scene? Every time one of these dealios try to imitate a scene from Vegas, Miami, Chicago, NYC whatever, the potential is minimized. Gawh!

tamtagon wrote:How about a Dallas-Style hotel with pool, night life, dining scene? Every time one of these dealios try to imitate a scene from Vegas, Miami, Chicago, NYC whatever, the potential is minimized. Gawh!

What is Dallas style?

Some hulking structure covered in LED lights with 0 ground floor retail and 16,000 parking spots